Ece Temelkuran
(Turkey, 1973) is one of the most well-known Turkish journalists and political commentators. Until the recent political oppression period she wrote columns for the newspapers Milliyet and Habertürk. She also produced and presented a remarkable TV program. Her investigative journalism books touch subjects that are highly controversial, such as Kurdish and Armenian issues, the women's movement, and political prisoners. Her articles have been published in international media such as Nawaat, New Left Review, Le Monde Diplomatique, Global Voices Advocacy, Al Akhbar, New Statesman and The Guardian. She was a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford and Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Ece Temelkuran won numerous awards for her work, including the Pen for Peace Award and Turkish Journalist of the Year. Her first novel Muz Sesleri (The Sound of Bananas, 2010) appeared in Arabic and was published in seven countries including the Netherlands. Her most recent book is Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy. In this book she walks us along a hazardous, unsanctioned route from modern Turkey's founding in 1923, its history of military coups to the agenda and modus operandi of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
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Archive available for: Ece Temelkuran
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The Book of My Life: Ece Temelkuran
The Turkish writer/journalist talks about her favourite book - the book that inspires or moves her; the book that formed her moral or intellectual compass; the book that she would recommend to anyone. Interviewer: Hassnae Bouazza. In English.
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The Return of Sultans & Tsars?
Dutch-Estonian writer Sana Valiulina, the Turkish writer and journalist Ece Temelkuran and and famous Russian novelist Mikhail Shishkin discuss the backgrounds of the current turbulent period in Turkey and Russia. How far back in history must we go to understand contemporary Turkey and Russia? Which collective trauma's, frustrations and sentiments are at the roots of recent developments? Hosted by Dutch essayist and P.C.Hooft Award 2017 winner Bas Heijne. English spoken.
Since the failed coup of Summer 2016, Turkey goes through a grim period. Not only the military but also dissidents are persecuted. Many journalists are refrained from working, many scientists and intellectuals are not allowed to travel abroad. But the trend of intimidating the intelligentsia dates back before the coup. In 2015, writer and Nobel Prize for Literature winner Orhan Pamuk already warned in The Guardian that fear gets the upperhand in Turkey: "I notice that everybody is afraid...the freedom of speech has sunk deeply."
Things are not much better in Russia. Mikhail Shishkin wrote about how Russian media under the Putin regime have changed into weapons of mass destruction aimed at convincing the population that Russia is again at war with the West. Within this rethoric of war, each form of criticism is a sign of treason. This legitimizes oppression of dissidents.
Ece Temelkuran is a Turkish journalist and political commentator, and author of Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy.
Dutch-Estonian Sana Valiulina tells in her Children of Brezjnev (2014) what the Soviet system has demolished regarding civilisation and how moral decline gained momentum during the post-soviet era.
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VPRO De Avonden Live: Ece Temelkuran and Adriaan van Dis
Interviews with these writers from Turkey and The Netherlands at the festival for the VPRO radio programme De Avonden Live. Visitors are allowed to peek freely and listen in. In English and Dutch.
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Ece Temelkuran's text of her life
Ece Temelkuran is a leading journalist and writer from Turkey. In the Greenhouse she talks to the audience and to hosts Manon Uphoff and Aleid Truijens about a poem by Emily Dickinson. To her it is the text of her life. In English.
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The Medium and the Message
The social and political implications of the new media and the world wide web have both been extensively praised as well as severely criticised. But one important promise keeps recurring: that of democratisation. The 20th century has seen a succession of optimistic and open media. And all of them, from the telegraph to the telephone and beyond, ended up being closed and controlled industries. A discussion about the hopes and dreams of changing the world, of moving people and the (im)possibilities that the Internet provides in achieving this goal. Including a performance of composer, performer and poet Jaap Blonk. In English.
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Around the World with Umar - Among the Believers
In countries like Indonesia and Turkey religion gets a hold over politics. Power is changing and so is the way people approach religion. Is religion in politics a doomed path? Or is secularism an overestimated political system, just as stifling as any other belief? Ece Temelkuran (Turkey) and Ahmad Tohari (Indonesia) on the influence of state-imposed ideals. With music by the Iranian master of percussion Mohammad Reza Mortazawi. In English.
